Without a doubt I believe when Joe Esposito belted out the Karate Kid soundtrack, “You’re the best! Around! Nothing’s ever going to keep you down!” he had 2013’s Top 13 LA Foodstuffs Under $13 in mind. How is that possible for a 29-year old song? I’m not sure. But don’t let that detract you from Unemployed Eater’s fourth annual enumerating of the Southland’s finest frugal food finds. This year the list culls far and wide from our fair city and county. Encino! Atwater Village! Sierra Madre! Miracle Mile! It also spans the gamut when it comes to cuisine. Breakfast! Lunch! Dinner! Snacks! Cookies! Appys!

No doubt about it, last week was a tough week. When it finally came to the weekend we were in desperate need of distraction. Something fun. Something entertaining. Something different. Something fucking weird.

While many hit the 10 and flocked to the Coachella Valley desert to get their dose of musical strange, more than five thousand smartly stuck around Los Angeles and attended the annual cheesy bacchanalia known as the Grilled Cheese Invitational. No longer a spring chicken, now in it’s eleventh incarnation, the GCI stands as one of LA’s most premiere – if not, odd (-ly entertaining) – annual food events.

’Tis the season… of Best Of lists. Never to shy away from the holiday spirit, I am very pleased (for the third year in a row) to present Unemployed Eater’s very own enumeration, 2012’s Top 12 LA Foodstuffs Under $12. Twenty-twelve was a blessed year for the blog as I ate and drank my way through Los Angeles greater than I ever had before…